The Greatest American Book: Walden by Henry David Thoreau

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when it came time to die, to discover that I had not lived.-- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Last Monday afternoon I asked you to help me name the greatest American book of all time. There've been many replies, and the (serious) suggestions include, in order, Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, A Movable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Walden by Henry David Thoreau, An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, The Adventures of Hucklebery Finn by Mark Twain, The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams, On The Road by Jack Kerouac, Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson, Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S. Thompson, The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer, Pragmatism by William James, The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, The World According to Garp by John Irving, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, Madame Rosa by Romain Gary (which makes no sense since Romain Gary was French), To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe, The Federalist Papers, Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin, Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Baby and Child Care br Dr. Spock, The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss, The Recognitions by William Gaddis and Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger.

I'm surprised that nobody but me mentioned Moby Dick by Herman Melville, and I also thought there'd be more support for The Book of Mormon, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, Poems by Emily Dickinson, Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. But that's fine with me, because it happens that several people did mention the book I believe to be the greatest by a citizen or resident of the United States of America: Walden, or Life in the Woods, written by Henry David Thoreau and published by Ticknor and Fields in 1854.

We each have our own favorites, of course. But I'll stake a guess -- for whatever these guesses may be worth -- that future literary historians will consider this book to have the highest stature of any book published in my country so far. I can't tell you everything I want to say about Walden here today, but here are three things that I find exceptional about this book.

The Artistry

You may have to slow your body speed down a bit to catch Henry Thoreau's wavelength, but once you do there is no denying the pure delight found in these words. No other writer -- not even my beloved Henry James -- crafts sentences sharper than those you'll find in Walden.

Thoreau was a social reformer with a distinct philosophy, but nobody might have ever cared about his philosophy if he didn't crystallize it with such artistry and skill. A Harvard graduate and obsessive reader, he learned from the best of the brilliant "New England Transcendentalists" who were his older friends and neighbors in Concord, Massachusetts, and he eventually developed a voice richer than any of theirs, richer even than that of his more famous friend and hero Ralph Waldo Emerson. High-toned, alive to all the human senses, Thoreau's prose presents an attitude that combines humorous warmth with merciless sarcasm. Sarcasm is certainly the top note in Walden, a book designed to attack the mores of polite New England society. Here he is, for instance, on the subject of clothing:

Kings and Queens who wear a suit but once, though made by some tailor or dress-maker to their majesties, cannot know the comfort of wearing a suit that fits. They are no better than wooden horses to hang the clean clothes on. Every day our garments become more assimilated to ourselves, receiving the impress of the wearer's character, until we hesitate to lay them aside, without such delay and medical appliances and some such solemnity even as our bodies. No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience. But even if the rent is not mended, perhaps the worst vice betrayed is improvidence. I sometimes try my acquaintances by such tests as this, -- who could wear a patch, or two extra seams only, over the knee? Most behave as if they believed that their prospects for life would be ruined if they should do it. It would be easier for them to hobble to town with a broken leg than with a broken pantaloon. Often if an accident happens to a gentleman's legs, they can be mended, but if a similar accident happens to the legs of his pantaloon's, there is no help for it; for he considers, not what is respectable, but what is respected. We know but few men, a great many coats and breeches. Dress a scarecrow in your last shift, you standing shiftless by, who would not soonest salute the scarecrow? Passing a cornfield the other day, close by a hat and coat on a stake, I recognized the owner of the farm. He was only a little more weather-beaten than when I saw him last.

Thoreau's writing style is too thick and fanciful for some, but I find he has no equal. Often his imagination carries him towards connections or metaphors no other writer could possibly find. In Walden every small human transaction, such as the borrowing of an axe, is examined for meaning:

Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, and began to cut down some tall arrowy white pines, still in their youth, for timber. It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye, but I returned it sharper than I received it.

Other times Thoreau becomes downright poetic, or else he shouts "Simplicity! Simplicity!" His voice takes getting used to, but so does his moral message, and they are each a perfect match for each other. Not for nothing is the first chapter of Walden called "Economy".

The Audacity of the Experiment

There's a mistaken belief that Walden is a book about nature. It is incidentally so, but this does not describe the book's essential aim.

Walden takes place in a cabin in the woods, but Thoreau's goal in life was to be a social reformer, and this is a book about society. If you don't believe me, please consider the fact that Thoreau did not actually retreat from civilization to live in the woods, but rather built a cabin in the woods right in the middle of Concord, Massachusetts. In fact, Walden Pond was on the property of Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the most popular and well-known intellectuals of 19th Century America. Emerson had constant visitors, including many important intellectuals of this age, and Thoreau's purpose in building a cabin to live in for two years on Emerson's property was to make a spectacle of himself. (It's certainly to Emerson's credit that he allowed, and even encouraged, this experiment).

Thoreau could have left civilization behind if he wanted to. He knew where to find the much deeper forests of Maine and New Hampshire, where for all we know other Harvard graduates may have disappeared into lives of true solitude and never been heard from again. Thoreau had no intention of never being heard from again. To build a cabin and live "like a savage" in the center of a celebrated and prosperous New England town is a pronouncement. It's like sitting down on the floor of a fancy party and going into a fetal position; you only do it if you want attention.

Why did Thoreau want attention? Because he had something to say:

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.

This is one of the bleaker (though most well-known) passages in what is generally an optimistic book of philosophy and observation. Which brings us to the third exceptional characteristic of this book.

The Message

Like Emerson, Thoreau was fascinated with Buddhism and other eastern religions, and in fact his basic message -- "Simplicity! Simplicity!" -- is consistent with the deepest philosophies of the Buddhist religion. Thoreau believed that Americans consumed too much, worked too hard and enjoyed too little. His diatribes against the ingrained American culture of hard labor and grave responsibility make up some of the most memorable passages in this book:

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattles and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. What made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt?

When he was not occupying himself as a writer, a natural scientist and a critic of social mores, Henry Thoreau worked fervently for the Abolitionist cause (as, of course, most of the New England Transcendentalists did). Slavery was the hot issue of the day -- the American Civil War began seven years after Walden was published -- and Thoreau's other famous "publicity stunt" was to get thrown in jail for refusing to pay taxes, on the grounds that he chose not to support an economic system that tolerated slavery. Many decades later and halfway across the world, the writings and life story of Henry David Thoreau would inspire Mohandas Gandhi to begin a massive public campaign for self-determination among colonized peoples that remains one of the most successful social protest movements of all time. Decades later again, the same thread of civil disobedience was picked up by Martin Luther King back in Thoreau's United States of America. Now, even more decades have passed but our nation and world remain highly confused. Perhaps we all need to pick up this thread once more.

Literary judgements are subjective, but it is perhaps only because I so badly want people to read Walden that I feel compelled to name it as the greatest American book. I should also mention that I don't particularly agree with those who find Thoreau a uniquely American writer. Some critics have said that his personal individualism and love of open space make him a representative of the American soul, but I think that most Americans -- and most people in the world -- could stand to appreciate the wisdom of Thoreau a lot more than they currently do.

But Walden is essentially an optimistic book -- the last line tells us:

The sun is but a morning star.

And there is plenty of hope that someday a large number of people may read and be inspired by this wonderful book.

31 Responses to "The Greatest American Book: Walden by Henry David Thoreau"

by firecracker on Thursday, July 5, 2007 10:24 pm

Live, From the Woods...Perfect wrap-up ... even if it was a bit of a softball way out here by the birdfeeders.

by Billectric on Friday, July 6, 2007 08:01 am

Top NotchLevi, you have skillfully summed up everything I like about Thoreau and Walden. I knew what book you were going to pick, and I do agree with you.From a writer's perspective alone, one can say that Whitman, Faulkner, Hemingway, Kerouac, and others all sought organic realism (simplicity, sometimes interwoven with vines of insight and flowers of poetry).

by danjazz on Friday, July 6, 2007 08:03 am

Great 'contest'Thanks, Levi, for a highly amusing contest and your detailed explication of Walden. I haven't read it in years and now must go back to it.(Coincidentally, I live in Boston and visited Walden Pond a week ago with my family. Very relaxing and well-preserved.)I'm amazed that no one mentioned Lolita as the best book.

by oupblog on Friday, July 6, 2007 09:07 am

The PondHey there, thought you might enjoy this link. It is an excerpt from a book about the history of Walden Pond.

by brooklyn on Friday, July 6, 2007 10:44 am

Cool link, thanks!I've been to Walden Pond a few times. The faux-Thoreau cabin (which is not in the right spot) feels kind of underwhelming to me. I was more interested to stand on the spot where the actual cabin once stood. The most enjoyable thing about Walden Pond, for me, was watching a few families with kids show up in their swimsuits to enjoy the small beach, oblivious to the history of the place.

by mileage on Friday, July 6, 2007 10:58 am

lolita?american??

by brooklyn on Friday, July 6, 2007 11:19 am

Mileage, some might consider it a stretch but I do think "Lolita" can be fairly called an American book. Nabokov became an American citizen before he wrote the book, and the story is set in this country.

by danjazz on Friday, July 6, 2007 02:45 pm

"I am as American as apple pie." - Nabokov

by R. W. Watkins on Friday, July 6, 2007 07:50 pm

Nabokov a U.S. writer? These sort of claims are always contentious. Canada always claimed Saul Bellow as a Canadian author, while the U.S. often claims Leonard Cohen as its own (come to think of it, so does half of Europe, where his albums have been known to hit No. 1 on the charts while Michael Jackson's were stuck at No. 2). Then there's the idea of the 'French-Canadian' Kerouac, not to mention the 'French' Samuel Beckett. The Welsh claim David Jones and sometimes even Gerard Manley Hopkins, even though both were born and raised and lived in England. Similarly, many English anthologists claim Dylan Thomas, Gwyn Thomas, Vernon Watkins and Alun Lewis, plus Seamus Heaney (The world's most overrated living poet?--he's definitely the thickest, referring to that tacky moron Eminem as one of the great poets of our generation, comparing him to the likes of Dylan in the process!) from Northern Ireland. So it looks like there is no clear, consistent set of criteria for unanimously deciding the nationality of authors and other artists....

by RichardGrayson on Friday, July 6, 2007 09:42 pm

Teaching WaldenI love the book too, but I've tried to teach it three times in the past 25 or so years -- in a community college American Literature Before 1865 class, in an AP English high school class, and in an upper-division university class called The American Experience in Literature. Most of the students liked the ideas in here but couldn't handle the prose; it was just too difficult for them. I recall one student said he didn't like Thoreau's "strict" style.

by Billectric on Friday, July 6, 2007 09:45 pm

By which I mean, in America, Thoreau set the template for all that (what I said in the above post), and noncomformity.

by Billectric on Friday, July 6, 2007 09:47 pm

When I was in high school, I really liked the idea of what Thoreau did, the way the teacher explained it, but I didn't actually read the entire book until later.

by brooklyn on Saturday, July 7, 2007 08:58 am

Yeah, Thoreau's writing style does throw many readers off. Because it's such a famous (but, possibly, not widely read) book, it's probably the case that people often begin "Walden" expecting it to be something other than it turns out to be. It helps to set your expectations accordingly -- that's why I mentioned above that you have to "slow down" to enjoy reading this book.

by R. W. Watkins on Saturday, July 7, 2007 10:32 am

An American Book for U.S. AmericansI think Walden is of major interest only to U.S. citizens. I remember studying Thoreau and Emerson just briefly in the context of a fourth-year English lit. course while at university. I never found their ideas to be particularly impressive or original (at least the fragments and synopses I partook of)--sort of like 'stuff Canadians and Nietszche know/knew already', or what have you. As well, I think it is safe to say that they are taken seriously as philosophers only in the U.S.--I don't think I've ever come across a single philosophical anthology in which either was included. In this regard, they are to 19th Century U.S.A. as Marshall McLuhan is to 20th Century Canada (well, North America at best).

by ARAHH on Saturday, July 7, 2007 02:47 pm

Thanks ..for reminding me, the support with fresh views ..Now I'll take my Thoreau with me on my holidays, along with the 4 Naxos CDS 'Walden', perhaps to find some peace in my strange existence ..up to now, too much (?) 'enthusiastic wildness' had held me back, since, as You write: "You may have to slow your body speed down a bit to catch Henry Thoreau's wavelength ..".By the way, remember Rod Phillips' book 'Forrest Beatniks' and 'Urban Thoreaus' ?So I'll see how it will mix with Auster, Ford, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Emerson, Shakespeare, and some 2ndary lit on Walking Lit and Ammons, Rogers -- Words w/out borders and some lit/CDs on comparative religion/philosophy ... see: I HAVE TO calm down, avoiding dark circles.. while watching silent high mountains (like some Beats did) and my daughter with cows and flowers. And I did and do expect that I find much for quiet contemplation explanation as Thoreau really seems to have "set the template" (Bill) for many streams of mind ..."..and noncomformity." (Bill, again):-- If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.-- (cover of the CD box) Thanx.

by brooklyn on Saturday, July 7, 2007 06:40 pm

Well, as I mentioned above, at least one notable non-American -- Mohatma Gandhi -- was very into Thoreau.

by brooklyn on Saturday, July 7, 2007 06:41 pm

Glad to hear it, Walter -- hope you enjoy a lot! I bet you will.

by Rah on Saturday, July 7, 2007 08:39 pm

'Indian'I have felt the Concord circle to be a voice that I have been drawn to since before my birth - there is something ancient about it and resonant with all kinds of deja-vu for me. I think people who don't feel this anamneses aspect of it really don't get it and that's why it is in a strange position of being both ignored and preeminent in our cultural magma. Those who do "get it" can't regard it highly enough. However I have focused on Emerson in my readings, but I have a short awesome volume of Thoreau quotations. So far I have made a desultory reading of Walden - I especially liked certain poems by Thoreau in the volume I have. I recall reading that Thoreau's last word on his deathbed was "Indian" - and it is to the unity of the primordial regard for The Great Spirit with modern cosmopolitanism that, I believe, holds hope for America and the world.Personally I find that these authors have so many original ideas per square inch, that it makes many of their particulars hard to remember and in my conversational life I feel - "whoa I'm really inarticulate for a guy whose read such cool books."

by bull on Sunday, July 8, 2007 03:38 pm

waldenI think I was required to read this when I was in school but I dont remember it. I enjoyed your thoughts.

by Milton on Sunday, July 8, 2007 04:02 pm

I first read "Walden" in Italian translation while studying at an Italian university. It was the primary text for a post-Enlightenment philosophy class, at the expense of any European thinkers, so they took him pretty seriously.Also, in addition to Gandhi, I know Tolstoy and Proust wrote admiringly of Thoreau. No slouches, them.Also, Nietzsche was ten years old when "Walden" was first published (in diapers when Thoreau first went out to the cabin), so I have serious doubts that he knew these things already.

by brooklyn on Sunday, July 8, 2007 06:33 pm

Bull, pick it up again! Really, I think the whole problem is that *this book was not meant to be read by kids*. It's a book for adults. Great summer reading!

by David DeBus on Monday, July 9, 2007 11:16 am

Why Thoreau was in jailI thought Thoreau was in jail because he did not pay taxes for the Mexican-American War, not because he did not want to pay for slavery. The famous contre-temps with Emerson occured when Emerson asked, "Henry, what are you doing in there?" and Thoreau replied, "Ralph, what are you doing out there?"

by firecracker on Monday, July 9, 2007 08:29 pm

Milton -- that just made my week.

by R. W. Watkins on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 08:19 am

Canada wasn't officially in existence yet either, but the mindset or idea I'm referring to was. I was obviously making reference to the school/line of German philosophical thought, handed down through Hegel, Schopenhaur, Fichte, etc., which Nietzsche (pronounced neetz-cha, by the way, not neet-chee or neet-see) probably best represents (although some might argue in favour of Heidegger). Also, I was probably thinking somewhat of the cult of Thoreauian thought today, which looks underdeveloped compared to the cult of Nietzschean thought.

by brooklyn on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 08:25 am

That's an interesting point about "Thoreauian" vs. "Nietzschean" thought, R. W. I do agree with you that, compared to Nietzsche's philosophy, Thoreau's is totally out of style right now.It happens that HDT and FN are two of my very favorites, though, so there must be some realm in which their ideas are compatible.

by brooklyn on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 08:30 am

I think the best answer is that he was protesting both the Mexican-American war and American slavery, and probably a few other things as well.According to Wikipedia he was protesting both the Mexican war and the institution of slavery.

for those who've read the book: try to remember what Thoreau says about Native Americans and the Irish - I loved his prose but his stereotypes spell out privileged white male...

by skinnychick on Friday, March 7, 2008 11:23 am

The book was written in the 1800's, at that time people weren't as sensitive to those stereotypes as they are now. Proving my point is the fact that stereotypes were even brought up in a discussion about a historical book instead of viewing the book from a historical perspective of what is was like to be alive back in those times.
Thoreau was an amazing writer and I too love his prose. For what it is, beautifully written historical prose.

"In her novels and short stories, Cather developed plot lines and characters that revealed both the freedom of the artist to create and the social rejection of that imagination." An English teacher from Nebraska spends a few days exploring Red Cloud, Nebraska, where Willa Cather lived a quietly unique life.

The words of John Calhoun, a brilliant politician and orator from South Carolina who defended human slavery in lofty terms, provide a great opportunity for us to challenge our own confidence in our own moral principles today.

.It wasn't long after I became enraptured by the uncommon fiction of Roxana Robinson that I learned she was a direct descendant of the famous, controversial 19th century preacher Henry Ward Beecher and a relative of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' author Harriet Beecher Stowe ...

"In her novels and short stories, Cather developed plot lines and characters that revealed both the freedom of the artist to create and the social rejection of that imagination." An English teacher from Nebraska spends a few days exploring Red Cloud, Nebraska, where Willa Cather lived a quietly unique life.

The words of John Calhoun, a brilliant politician and orator from South Carolina who defended human slavery in lofty terms, provide a great opportunity for us to challenge our own confidence in our own moral principles today.

.It wasn't long after I became enraptured by the uncommon fiction of Roxana Robinson that I learned she was a direct descendant of the famous, controversial 19th century preacher Henry Ward Beecher and a relative of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' author Harriet Beecher Stowe ...